Colorado’s local communities pay a high price for SB90 and federal immigration enforcement.

In an era ofbudget deficits, reduced services, hiring freezes and cuts across the board, local governments must allocateprecious resources to arresting, reporting and detaining suspected undocumented immigrants charged withlow-level crimes

–

disturbing the peace, failure to use a turn signal, giving false information

. It’s time to re

-evaluate SB90 and ask again if SB90 and immigration enforcement is the right priority for Colorado.



The state of Colorado spends upwards of

$13 million per year

to enforce federal immigration laws

–

more than it would cost to put an additional 200 additional police or sheriff’s deputies on the street.



The City and County of Denver alone pays up to

$1.5 million per year to arrest and detainsuspected undocumented immigrants

–

roughly the same amount of general fund money that the

Denver District Attorney’s Office allocates for the Family Violence Unit

, which screens and prosecutescases of family violence ranging from spousal or intimate partner abuse to elder abuse and childsexual assault

–

a public safety service that provides an on-call staff that responds to child fatalities24-hours a day, seven days a week.

1

SB90 and ICE detainers result in more immigrants being jailed for low-level offenses in the first place andheld for longer periods of time in the second - all at an increased cost to local taxpayers.



63 percent of people in Denver County over a two-year period with an immigration detainer werecharged with misdemeanor and lower level offenses. Only

37 percent were charged with a felony

ofany level.



Federal immigration officials have

removed only 65 people from Denver County

who were

convicted of a serious felony offense since Denver began participating in ICE’s new deportation

program, Secure Communities.



People with a suspected immigration violation stayed in county jail an average of

22 days longer

than people without an ICE hold.

Misplaced Priorities: SB90 & the Costs to Local Communities

Page

2

The

Colorado Fiscal Institiute

BACKGROUND

In 2006, the Colorado State General Assembly passed Senate Bill 06-090

2

(SB90) which requires local lawenforcement officers and agencies to report anyone arrested for a criminal offense, who they reasonablybelieve to be an undocumented immigrant, to United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).Widely viewed as a precursor to other state immigration enforcement

measures, such as Arizona’s SB1070,Colorado’s SB90 also:



prohibits local governments from adopting ordinances or policies that limit law enforcement agents

requires that all local governments annually report to the Colorado General Assembly that they are incompliance with SB90; and



holds that any local law enforcement agency in violation of SB90 shall not be eligible to receive localgovernment financial assistance grants administered by the state department of local affairs.

Like Arizona’s SB1070, SB90 incites controversy and debate. In 2006, proponents contended that SB90 would

force federal immigration officials to remove undocumented immigrants who commit crimes in Colorado, andwould also provide statewide guidance for how local law enforcement should handle their limited immigrationenforcement role. Opponents argued that SB90 would lead to racial profiling by police, invite abuses of civilliberties, erode trust between immigrant communities and law enforcement and place an unnecessary burdenon local peace officers untrained as immigration enforcers.An argument was also made that SB90 would create an unnecessary cost burden on counties and cities thatwould now be mandated to report suspected immigration violators and detain those immigrants for ICE for up

to 48 hours. At the time of its passage, Colorado’s legislative council staff (LCS), which estimates the fiscal

impacts to the state of all proposed legislation, noted in their fiscal note for SB90 that local governmentswould bear some costs to implement the law but at the time LCS did not quantify that cost.

3

This reportattempts to do just that. Now that more than half a decade has passed since the implementation of SB90,

Colorado’s experience tells a compelling story of the detrimental fiscal impacts of state

-mandated localimmigration enforcement.

HOW SB90 WORKS

SB90 requirements are supposed to kick in when an officer arrests someone for a criminal offense. Minortraffic infractions are not criminal offenses and should not trigger an SB90 notification to ICE. There are two

types of “arrests” –

custodial and non-custodial. A non-custodial arrest means that the police officer detainsthe person for a low-level crime and issues a citation or summons to appear in court at a later date. In thiscase, an offender is never taken into jail for booking. A custodial arrest means that the officer arrests theoffender and transports them to a detention center or jail to be booked and held until they post bond or areadjudicated. Arrests can be for any crime ranging from petty offenses, like possession of less than 1 ounce ofmarijuana in Denver, where the person would typically be issued a summons and released at the scene, tofelony murder.SB90 states that law enforcement must have probable cause or reasonable belief that a person who commitsa crime is in the country unlawfully in order to report the person to ICE. If an arresting officer has probablecause to think the arrestee is undocumented, he or she must under SB90 report the person to ICE. Similarly, if a